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Well, it's a new month here at Flap's Flap. I have decided today to finally bring up one of my favorite new utilities to the flightsim community that I'm sure many of you have all ready seen in my screen shots on the screen shot forum under the user name Ragtopjohnny. For those of you who are, you know that I love Tile Proxy. For those of you who don't, I'm sure you're wondering while scratching your head out there too saying "Tile Proxy? What's that?" Well, I'm going to show you how you can transform Flight Simulator 2004 - FSX into a photoreal world that you would never have seen before with out this wonderful piece of well written software.
First of all, I have to give a virtual handshake to the creator of this software, Christian Buchner who I must say did a remarkable job, and thank him for finally doing what I thought was an impossibility - bring the real world into flight simulator.
First of all, you can download an updated version of the program which is even more current than the one in the library here at http://edtruthan.com/tileproxy/tutorial/. You will want to follow all steps in that little tutorial to be able to spare yourself some headaches so you're able to enjoy the potential shock you'll receive once you get the utility running properly.
Tile Proxy works by bringing in images from all the different mapping servers out there that we're familiar with. From sources such as Google Earth, Virtual Earth, and even lesser known sources like Yahoo! Maps. That's the one that I chose because it gives the most up to date information.
That is how Tile Proxy brings in the real world to the simulator. And you know what? I was actually able to find my own house in the sim! (I'm just glad a real plane didn't fly over my house at the time because I would have found that to be just a little bit TOO freaky).
Anyway, I know there are those of you who are not convinced unless you see screen shots. Fortunately, I have an extensive screen shot library now thanks to this program, and I'll be more than happy to oblige!
Now I'm sure you're all wondering about the machine I'm using here. Well, first of all, it's a Dell Inspirion 531 with 2.8 GHz Dual Core AMD processor. It has 3gigs of RAM along with a 768mb PCI-Express card from PNY Technologies, the nVidia 8800GTX OC edition. I get great performance from this machine with FSX, and even before Tile Proxy. If anything, I must say Tile Proxy even improves FSX's performance!
Okay, ready for some screen shots? Here we go. These will be all with Tile Proxy, since I'm sure you are all familiar how the humdrum cartoonish sim scenery can look right out of the box.
The big event! When I found my house in Tile Proxy: "Over North Smithfield".
The main road is Great Road, and my house is the 5th from the left hand corner of the screen, even showing my Mom's and my cars in front of it! Well, after finally flying over my house several times, and thinking that this is just too cool, I've decided to get out and explore the rest of the world. Here's some from my journeys:
This is over Miami in Florida. This is as clear as any other scenery products out there, though performance may vary from system to system.
Corpus Christ, Texas: "Downtown Corpus Christi".
"U.S.S. Lexington", Corpus Christi, Texas.
Now, this one I just like. The thing with Tile Proxy is it picked up everything from the satellite photos. You even now have ships that were in the water from before. Though not moving, they look incredibly cool when you see this over head shot:
I hope that I have inspired some of you to try Tile Proxy with this article. I never fly with out it, and it's a winner of a utility. I can fly it with jets, and it works with Ultimate Terrain night lighting as well too.
If you try it, and like it - feel free to email me and let me know what you think, and you'll see why I think Tile Proxy really makes Flight Simulator X and 2004 "As real as it gets..."
Until next month my fellow simmers, happy flying, and remember - keep that blue side up!
John J. Thuot II
Captainjohnfsx@aol.com
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